THE death toll in the South Korean ferry disaster has risen to 58, and 244 are still missing, the country’s coast guard says.

Search crews brought the bodies of over a dozen victims to shore on Sunday, a solemn process pierced by the deafening screams and cries from the passengers’ families.

Angry relatives clashed with police as the bodies of their loved ones were carried onto the port at Jindo, draped in cloth.

The captain of the ferry has been arrested on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need.

Two crew members also were taken into custody, including a rookie third mate who a prosecutor said was at the helm in challenging waters unfamiliar to her when the accident occurred, the New York Post reports.

The recovery of bodies markedg a grim new stage in the search and recovery process.

“Divers broke through the window of a passenger cabin just before midnight and pulled out three bodies,” a coastguard official said on Sunday.

All three were wearing lifejackets, the official said, adding that two were male while the gender of the third was not immediately confirmed.

They were the same three bodies that had been spotted, but not retrieved, during an earlier dive.

The age of the victims pulled from the ferry on Saturday night was not immediately known.

Their recovery followed days of fruitless efforts by more than 500 divers to access the submerged ship in the face of powerful currents and near-zero visibility.

The ferry’s captain, Lee Joon-seok, 68, was arrested along with one of the Sewol’s three helmsmen and the 25-year-old third mate, prosecutors said.

Captain Lee confirmed he was not at the helm when the ship ran into trouble.

The ship was being steered by a 55-year-old helmsman identified by his surname Cho, under the supervision of the female third officer.

“It may have partly been my fault,” Mr Cho said at the arraignment.

“But the steering gear rotated unusually fast.”

“I am sorry to the people of South Korea for causing a disturbance and I bow my head in apology to the families of the victims,” Captain Lee told reporters on Saturday morning as he left the Mokpo Branch of Gwangju District Court to be jailed. But he defended his much-criticised decision to wait about 30 minutes before ordering an evacuation.

“At the time, the current was very strong, the temperature of the ocean water was cold, and I thought that if people left the ferry without (proper) judgment, if they were not wearing a life jacket, and even if they were, they would drift away and face many other difficulties,” Captain Lee said. “The rescue boats had not arrived yet, nor were there any civilian fishing ships or other boats nearby at that time.”

The Sewol sank off South Korea’s southern coast Wednesday with 476 people aboard, most of them students on holiday from a single high school. Most of the missing are believed to be trapped inside the 6852-tonne vessel.

Human barricade ... police officers stand in line in order to prevent the deaths of relatSource:AP

By the time the evacuation order was issued, the ship was listing at too steep an angle for many people to escape the tight hallways and stairs inside. Several survivors told The Associated Press that they never heard any evacuation order.

Divers fighting strong currents and rain have been unable to get inside the ferry. Hundreds of civilian, government and military divers were involved in the search on Saturday.

Senior prosecutor Yang Jung-jin told reporters that the third mate was steering the ship on Wednesday morning as it passed through an area with lots of islands clustered close together and fast currents. Investigators said the accident came at a point where the ship had to make a turn, and prosecutor Park Jae-eok said investigators were looking at whether the third mate ordered a turn so sharp that it caused the vessel to list.

In custody ... Lee Joon-seok, third from left, the captain of the ferry Sewol that sank oSource:AP

Mr Yang said the third mate has six months of experience, and hadn’t steered in the area before because another mate usually handles those duties. She took the wheel this time because heavy fog caused a departure delay, Mr Yang said, adding that investigators do not know whether the ship was going faster than usual.

Helmsman Park Kyung-nam identified the third mate as Park Han-kyul. The helmsman who was arrested, 55-year-old Cho Joon-ki, spoke to reporters outside court and accepted some responsibility.

“There was a mistake on my part as well, but the steering had been turned much more than usual,” Mr Cho said.

Captain Lee has four decades of experience at sea. He had been captaining ferries for 10 years by the time he was interviewed by the Jeju Today website in 2004, and said he had sailed on ocean freighters for 20 years before that.

But he was not the Sewol’s main captain, and worked on the ship about 10 days a month, helmsman Oh Yong-seok said.

Captain Lee was not on the bridge when the ship began to list. “I gave instructions on the route, then briefly went to the bedroom when it happened,” he told reporters.

According to the court, Captain Lee faces five charges, including negligence of duty and violation of maritime law, and the two other crew members each face three related charges.

Captain Lee was required by law to be on the bridge helping his crew when the ferry passed through tough-to-navigate areas, said Mr Yang, the senior prosecutor.

Waiting on news ... relatives of the ferry passengers sleep at a gymnasium. Divers battleSource:AFP

Mr Yang said Captain Lee also abandoned people in need of help and rescue, saying, “The captain escaped before the passengers.” Video aired by Yonhap news agency showed Lee among the first people to reach the shore by rescue boat.

South Korean rescue team members try to search missing passengers of the sunken ferry Sewol near buoys which were installed to mark the area in the water off the southern coast near Jindo,

Yang said the two crew members arrested failed to reduce speed near the islands and failed to carry out necessary measures to save lives.

It’s not clear why the two crew members made the sharp turn, Mr Yang said. He said prosecutors would continue to look into whether something other than the turn could have made the ferry sink, but he added that there were no strong waves that could have knocked down the ferry at the time.

Prosecutors will have 10 days to decide whether to indict the captain and crew, but can request a 10-day extension from the court.

Lost to the sea ... a victim of the sunken ferry off the coast of Jindo Island is transpoSource:Getty Images

The Sewol had left the northwestern port of Incheon on Tuesday on an overnight journey to the holiday island of Jeju in the south with 323 students from Danwon High School in Ansan among its passengers. It capsized within hours of the crew making a distress call to the shore a little before 9am Wednesday.

The relatives camped out in a gymnasium on Jindo island - most of them parents of high school students - have sharply criticised the pace of the rescue operation, accusing officials of incompetence and indifference.

A transcript of a ship-to-shore radio exchange shows that an official at the Jeju Vessel Traffic Services Centre recommended evacuation just five minutes after the Sewol’s distress call. But helmsman Oh told the AP that it took 30 minutes for the captain to give the evacuation order as the boat listed.

With only 174 known survivors and the chances of survival increasingly slim, it is shaping up to be one of South Korea’s worst disasters, made all the more heartbreaking by the likely loss of so many young people, aged 16 or 17. The country’s last major ferry disaster was in 1993, when 292 people were killed.

The last bit of the ferry that had been above water — the dark blue keel — disappeared below the surface Friday night. Navy divers attached underwater air bags to the ferry to prevent it from sinking deeper, the Defence Ministry said.

Submerged ... the tip of the hull of a capsized ferry sticks out of the water as South KoSource:AFP

Three vessels with cranes arrived at the accident site to prepare to salvage the ferry, but they will not hoist the ship before getting approval from family members of those still believed inside because the lifting could endanger any survivors, said a coast guard officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.

Coast guard official Ko Myung-seok said 176 ships and 28 planes were mobilised to search the area around the sunken ship Saturday, and that more than 650 divers were trying to search the interior of the ship. The coast guard also said a thin layer of oil was visible near the area where the ferry sank; about two dozen vessels were summoned to contain the spill.